February 24, 2008

BAT-MANGA: The Secret History of Batman in Japan!

This September 2008, Pantheon Books will release a brand new book titled "BAT-MANGA: The Secret History of Batman in Japan". Compiled by book designer and comics connoisseur Chip Kidd, along with fellow collector Saul Ferris and photographer Geoff Spear, Bat Manga! presents a collection of original Japanese Batman stories written and drawn by Jiro Kuwata, the artist of 8-Man. Now, the amazing thing is that both DC & the Japanese company have never had file copies of this material & it had to be gathered by collectors hunting down the original magazines. So, in other words, this material has not been seen or read in over 30 years, a RARE treat! Chip Kidd is pretty well known among us Bat-Nerds ( I mean that in a good way, ha ha ) for putting together a super-great Batman vintage toy collector book a few years ago titled "Batman Collected". Which, is an incredible book! He's also known as an extremely famous book designer ( he created the Jurassic Park Dinosaur logo & many other very famous book covers ) so all his stuff is very high-quality. The photos up above show the hardback cover ( left ) & paperback version ( right ). Oh my God, I can't wait!!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Also, FYI! Here's an interview with Bat Manga authors Chip Kidd and Saul Ferris about the "secret origins" of this book, and a preview gallery of a few pages from the book too.

Tommy! said...

Thanks Deb, for the link. I'm a HUGE Chip Kidd Fan & will have to check it out!

ozz said...

I recently read Bat-Manga for the first time, and it was interesting. I think Kuwata did a fine job capturing the essence of the character in terms of that era. The villians were interesting.

Too bad all of the originals mags weren't found, since we don't get conclusions to all of the stories.